Cisco CCNA Certification Exam Training:

Comparing Circuit Switching And Packet Switching

By Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933

Cisco CCNA certification exam training can be pretty intimidating at times, if only because you've got so many terms to learn and master to earn your CCNA certification! It may seem like Cisco made a lot of the terms similar just to make the exam harder, but trust me, they didn't. But we still have to know these important details!

When you're studying for any Cisco certification, you quickly realize that there are always multiple ways of doing the same thing. In the real world, that's a good thing - we always want to have more than one way to get a job done. In the CCNA exam room, that makes things a little tougher!

On the surface, packet switching and circuit switching perform the same task - to get data from source to destination. That's where the similarities end. Packet switching involves getting packets from source to destination, but the packets may not all take the same physical path to get there.

A good example of packet switching is Frame Relay. Data units may and probably will take different paths through the Frame Relay cloud to reach the destination, and they'll be reassembled into the correct order at the destination.

Packet switching is highly effective, but due to the inherent slight delay in transmission, packet switching should not be used to transport traffic that's adversely affected by these delays. Voice and video traffic is obviously impacted by these delays.

Circuit switching involves building a dedicated path between source and destination, and all packets will use this path. Circuit switching is considered less effective than packet switching, but it is a better choice for delay-sensitive traffic such as voice and video.

Packet switching and circuit switching have one other major factor in common - they're both likely to show up on your CCNA certification exam, so make sure your exam training includes learning how both of them work!

That includes plenty of visits to my CCNA Tutorials page, where you'll find over 400 free videos, tutorials, and practice exams to prepare you for total success on exam day!

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To your success,

Chris Bryant

CCIE #12933

"The Computer Certification Bulldog"

chris@thebryantadvantage.com